Conventional transportation systems utilise several means to move goods and people. These include conventional rail transport systems that are typically powered by one or more locomotives that pull, or push, interconnected railcars. Locomotives typically have to be heavy enough to get sufficient traction on the rail track in order for it to accelerate the weight of the entire train from standstill to a specified speed, pull it up inclines and to decelerate the train from speed down to standstill again.
This is problematic due to the high relative weight of the locomotives to the overall weight of the load. To get traction, a train has to be heavy or extra motors have to be added to each and every rail cart being pulled by the locomotive or locomotives. This increases the cost and complexity of the train. The heavier the train itself has to be to get traction, the less efficient it is because weight is being carried around unnecessarily. For example, a train with freight cars dedicated to the movement of ore from a mine to a processing plant will typically be laden in one direction and empty in the opposite direction. The unnecessary weight is now being carried twice the distance.
Of course it would be easier to obtain better traction if trains used wheels made from a material with a higher friction coefficient with respect to steel rails, for example rubber or polymers. However, such wheels will not have the durability required for rail transport. Such wheels would wear much faster than steel wheels and may fail under compression of the loads they have to support (in circumstances where steel wheels do not fail). Trains often have to transport heavy loads over very long distances and it will be extremely disruptive if a train has to have a wheel changed along the way. Considering that a train cannot simply pull over to change a wheel like a truck can do, it becomes clear why trains are forced to use wheels made from highly durable and reliable material, such as steel.
When moving people or goods in high volumes using conventional public transport systems and bulk good transport systems such as busses, trucks, and trains three major problems are experienced:                1. Conventional systems include batch-based systems. This means a batch of people or goods are moved between two points. This is less efficient than a continuous movement system, because people and goods have to wait before they can be grouped into a batch that is moved, and if the batch is completed then the people or goods have to wait for the next batch to be filled before they can be moved. Typically, for example with people transport, in peak times there is not enough capacity to move the batches fast enough, resulting in long waiting periods. In off-peak times, bulk transport system operators typically downscale the number of batches per time unit thus reducing the active capacity of the system, also resulting in long waiting periods.        2. Conventional systems also include movement in accordance with a predetermined schedule, and not on demand. This results in batches often not being filled and the vehicles often having to transit well below their optimum load capacity, and on other times for there to be a higher demand than the number of batches scheduled can accommodate, again leading to sub-optimum movement.        3. Conventional systems moving in accordance to a schedule often do not run from a starting point straight to a destination point, but rather from a starting point to and end point while stopping at various points, such as stations, in between. This increases travel time and also results in sub-optimum utilization of transport capacity.        
Conventional logic dictates that the solution to these problems is to move larger volumes of people and goods together in order to improve economies of scale, and then to optimise the scheduling of the vehicles so that the movement of empty or half full vehicles are minimised, and then to limit the number of stops the vehicle makes along the scheduled route so that overall time is saved where possible. A train operator hitching more railcars during peak hours to the same locomotive provides evidence of this. It is also evidenced, in trucks carrying greater numbers of containers each. In trains handling raw materials such as ore, it is not uncommon to observe trains having a length of several hundreds of meters, even in excess of a kilometer, and for that ore transportation track to then only have a single starting point and a single destination point. This is also replicated in, for example, the road trains of the Australian outback.
A problem with this approach is that due to the sheer bulk the drive unit for such high capacity transport unit has to be increased. This comes at an increased cost and strain on the equipment. Due to the sheer weight and inertia of the system, it takes longer to accelerate and decelerate, which actually increases the actual travel time of the unit. In addition, if the unit suffers a malfunction then a larger volume of people or bulk material is delayed whilst the problem is sorted out.
It is proposed by the applicant that people and bulk goods may be transported much more efficiently in small transportation units, and for the transportation system as a whole to have the ability to allow individual transportation units to move independently, or in small groups, from any station along the transportation network to any other station without having to stop at stations in between this departing station and the specific destination station. This is particularly true if the movements are provided on demand rather than according to a predetermined schedule, and when the units are moved in an automated manner as opposed to requiring a driver.
It is believed, as an example, that it would be highly efficient for commuters to be transported in small transportation units catering for as few as 6 people or less at a time, from any position on a pre-established transportation network, for example a grid of intersecting tracks, to any other selected position on this network on demand when those people want to be moved from the one position to the other, without them having to abide by a schedule or having to waste transit time by having to stop at other positions along the network in between their departing and destination positions.
In such an instance it is recognized that it would be necessary for the individual transportation units to be able to, in traveling from one location to another, switch safely and at reasonable speed from one track to another in the grid.
The same should apply to the transport of goods between positions on the grid.